Exercise Performance Data Research Articles

Ice slurry ingestion improves physical performance during high-intensity intermittent exercise in a hot environment.

Ice slurry ingestion enhances exercise performance by lowering the core body temperature. However, an operational issue related to this ingestion is the requirement for a high intake of 7.5 g·kg-1 to produce the desired effects. We investigated the effects of the intake of low amounts of ice slurry at −2°C on the tympanic temperature and exercise performance during repeated high-intensity intermittent exercises in a hot environment. This study was a randomized, crossover study, with a 6-day washout period. Twelve university rugby union players performed two 30-min sessions of high-intensity intermittent exercises separated by a 15-min half-time break on a cycle ergometer in a hot environment (28.8°C ± 0.1°C, 49.5% ± 0.6% relative humidity). The participants ingested 450 g of −2°C-ice slurry (ICE), or a 30°C-beverage (CON) having the same composition as ICE, or 30°C-water (WAT) during the half-time break. The tympanic temperature and skin temperature were measured as the physiological data, and the peak power and mean power as the exercise performance data. The tympanic temperature at the half-time break and beginning of the 2nd session was significantly lower in the ICE group as compared with the CON and WAT groups. The skin temperature at the half-time break was significantly lower in the ICE group as compared with the WAT group. While the peak power and mean power during the 2nd session were significantly greater in the ICE group as compared with the CON and WAT groups. Our findings suggest that even the intake of lower amounts, as compared with those used in previous studies, of low-temperature ice slurry can reduce the body temperature and improve the peak power. These results suggest that intake of low-temperature ice slurry as a strategy for internal body cooling is useful for improving endurance exercise performance in hot environments.

Exercise Performance and Immune Competence [EPIC]: Background of Natural Immunity, Immune Diversity and Immuno-iatrogenesis

Impeccable Metabolic Maneuvers Upbring Natural Immunity To You [IMMUNITY]. Homeostatic competence of human body is an output of meticulous and interdependent/integrated/impeccable metabolic functions to resist or overcome diseases and facilitate a lengthy lifespan along the healthy ageing trajectory. Principles of homeostasis are seldom employed in the clinical applications. Perhaps this has led to almost an irreparable derailment of ethics and core competence of medical profession. Ivan Dominic Illich emphasized his criticisms on iatrogenesis and argued that modern medicine had hubristically taken on a mission to eradicate pain, sickness, even death but expropriated the autonomous power of humans to cope with their ailments. It is also quite obvious that the medical profession has failed to learn about ‘healthy individuals’ elaborately. Healthy individuals possess quintessential epigenetic efficiency and homeostatic competence built through several years of disciplined lifestyle, and especially their fitness characteristics are incomparably superior to individuals who never or rarely display propensity to improve their health standards. The disastrous perception of Immunology that ‘Best Homeostasis’ and ‘Worst Allostasis’ are same, hence all the individuals regardless of their health status are equally a potential source of disease transmission during an infectious disease outbreak, has caused severe disruption in various aspects of human life across the globe. Even the healthiest/fittest athletes and outstanding exercisers could asymptomatically transmit an infection to unhealthy people [who led an unhealthy lifestyle] whose disease could be anywhere in the allostasis spectrum ranging from early-stage co-morbidities to severe functional deterioration? Under the aegis of homeostasis and non-specific antibodies [Secretory IgA], a long-lasting Natural Immunity [NI] should be possible excluding the need of ‘specific antibodies’. Expanded Trained Immunity [ETI] proposed by Cassone has been found not only in innate immune system but also in nonimmune cells [both cells of hematopoietic and nonhematopoietic origin] associated with immunological memories from previous microbial encounters. Interesting discoveries about NI and ETI could emerge if they are linked with homeostasis and allostasis to develop objective immunologic tests to differentiate the healthy and unhealthy individuals, and enhance the clarity of immunology. Exercises are strongly linked to immunity; thus, measurements of exercise performance standards could accurately reveal the status of NI of the individuals if exercise performance data are systematically interpreted and correlated with immunologic function. Exercise performance data can be gathered using easily accessible non-invasive inexpensive tools. From the perspectives of homeostasis, we may not have distinct departments in the body to curb/defeat immunological or other non-immunological diseases, but any disease could be a threat to recovery to pre-existing conditions or even survival, if the homeostatic functions are impaired by iatrogenesis. KEYWORDS: Homeostasis, Innate Immunity, Adaptive Immunity, Exercise, Epigenetics, Trained Immunity, Secretory IgA, Allostasis, Immunosenescence, Iatrogenesis.

Evaluation of two different 1-year training programs among prepuberal female children

The aim of this study was to analyse and compare the effects of two different dance training concepts in terms of anthropometric indices and supervised motor test performance between two groups of 56 prepuberal girls. The first group, composed of 29 girls, performed a typical classical dance training program (D group), while the second one, composed of 27 girls, followed a mixed training (D&R group) workout, with classical dance exercises alternated to rhythmic gymnastics. Anthropometric and exercise performance data were collected and assessed initially (T1) and after a 1-year (T2) training program. Data collected were firstly tested for collinearity using Belsley’s test and, after their normality was tested through the Shapiro–Wilk test, analysis of variance (ANOVA) tests were performed on a subset of noncollinear variables. The two groups showed improvements in both anthropometric parameters and exercise performance; however, no differences arose between the variation of anthropometric parameters between the two groups. On the other hand, exercise performance was improved in some fields of the D&R group, particularly in exercises regarding the upper body, such as pull-ups, chin-ups and sit-ups. In conclusion, our data provide evidence that a specific training program consisting of classic dance plus rhythmic gymnastics exercises (D&R) has a greater impact compared to a program of simple classic dance, in terms of skill performance without impairment of anthropometric parameters.

Effects of Concurrent Training and a Multi-Ingredient Performance Supplement Containing Rhodiola rosea and Cordyceps sinensis on Body Composition, Performance, and Health in Active Men

Introduction Supplementation with Rhodiola Rosea (RR) and Cordyceps Sinensis (CS) has been shown to improve aerobic performance, but their influence on concurrent training (resistance training plus high intensity interval training) outcomes has not been established. The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of supplementation with a multi-ingredient performance supplement (MIPS) containing RR and CS during a 14-week training and testing program on body composition, weekly exercise training outcomes, overall training and performance outcomes, and hormone profiles. Methods Active college-aged men (N = 21) were stratified into either a MIPS or a placebo (PLA) group. Both groups completed 14 weeks of training and testing. Body composition, overall training outcomes, and blood sample collection occurred at weeks 0, 7, and 14, while training performance was evaluated weekly. Results Both groups improved (p < 0.05) percent body fat (-1.3%), bench press (+4%) and squat strength (+8%), with no difference between groups. Serum cortisol concentrations significantly decreased (-11%) but there were no differences between groups. No other changes in blood hormone profiles occurred. Weekly exercise performance data suggests that MIPS improved sprint performance, bench press lifting volume, and total workload, but this did not lead to improved overall training performance compared to PLA over the14-week study. Conclusion Despite MIPS improving certain aspects of weekly training performance, supplementation with MIPS for 14 weeks did not improve body composition, overall training and performance outcomes, or blood biomarkers of health in response to concurrent training in young men compared to PLA. This study was registered with clinicaltrials. gov (NCT02383017).

A year in the life of a Brazilian professional female road cycling team – Part I: Performance measures

A year in the life of a Brazilian professional female road cycling team – Part I: Performance measures

Effects of long-term balance training with vibrotactile sensory augmentation among community-dwelling healthy older adults: a randomized preliminary study

BackgroundSensory augmentation has been shown to improve postural stability during real-time balance applications. Limited long-term controlled studies have examined retention of balance improvements in healthy older adults after training with sensory augmentation has ceased. This pilot study aimed to assess the efficacy of long-term balance training with and without sensory augmentation among community-dwelling healthy older adults.MethodsTwelve participants (four males, eight females; 75.6 ± 4.9 yrs) were randomly assigned to the experimental group (n = 6) or control group (n = 6). Participants trained in their homes for eight weeks, completing three 45-min exercise sessions per week using smart phone balance trainers that provided written, graphic, and video guidance, and monitored trunk sway. During each session, participants performed six repetitions of six exercises selected from five categories (static standing, compliant surface standing, weight shifting, modified center of gravity, and gait). The experimental group received vibrotactile sensory augmentation for four of the six repetitions per exercise via the smart phone balance trainers, while the control group performed exercises without sensory augmentation. The smart phone balance trainers sent exercise performance data to a physical therapist, who recommended exercises on a weekly basis. Balance performance was assessed using a battery of clinical balance tests (Activity Balance Confidence Scale, Sensory Organization Test, Mini Balance Evaluation Systems Test, Five Times Sit to Stand Test, Four Square Step Test, Functional Reach Test, Gait Speed Test, Timed Up and Go, and Timed Up and Go with Cognitive Task) before training, after four weeks of training, and after eight weeks of training.ResultsParticipants in the experimental group were able to use vibrotactile sensory augmentation independently in their homes. After training, the experimental group had significantly greater improvements in Sensory Organization Test and Mini Balance Evaluation Systems Test scores than the control group. Significant improvement was also observed for Five Times Sit to Stand Test duration within the experimental group, but not in the control group. No significant improvements between the two groups were observed in the remaining clinical outcome measures.ConclusionThe findings of this study support the use of sensory augmentation devices by community-dwelling healthy older adults as balance rehabilitation tools, and indicate feasibility of telerehabilitation therapy with reduced input from clinicians.

Implicit Heterogeneous Features Embedding in Deep Knowledge Tracing

Deep recurrent neural networks have been successfully applied to knowledge tracing, namely, deep knowledge tracing (DKT), which aims to automatically trace students’ knowledge states by mining their exercise performance data. Two main issues exist in the current DKT models: First, the complexity of the DKT models increases the tension of psychological interpretation. Second, the input of existing DKT models is only the exercise tags representing via one-hot encoding. The correlation between the hidden knowledge components and students’ responses to the exercises heavily relies on training the DKT models. The existing rich and informative features are excluded in the training, which may yield sub-optimal performance. To utilize the information embedded in these features, researchers have proposed a manual method to pre-process the features, i.e., discretizing them based on the inner characteristics of individual features. However, the proposed method requires many feature engineering efforts and is infeasible when the selected features are huge. To tackle the above issues, we design an automatic system to embed the heterogeneous features implicitly and effectively into the original DKT model. More specifically, we apply tree-based classifiers to predict whether the student can correctly answer the exercise given the heterogeneous features, an effective way to capture how the student deviates from others in the exercise. The predicted response and the true response are then encoded into a 4-bit one-hot encoding and concatenated with the original one-hot encoding features on the exercise tags to train a long short-term memory (LSTM) model, which can output the probability that a student will answer the exercise correctly on the corresponding exercise. We conduct a thorough evaluation on two educational datasets and demonstrate the merits and observations of our proposal.

Validation of activity questionnaires in patients with cystic fibrosis by accelerometry and cycle ergometry

BackgroundThe objective of this study was to validate physical activity questionnaires for cystic fibrosis (CF) against accelerometry and cycle ergometry.Methods41 patients with CF (12-42 years) completed the Habitual Activity Estimation Scale (HAES), the 7-Day Physical Activity Recall questionnaire (7D-PAR) and the Lipid Research Clinics questionnaire (LRC) and performed an incremental exercise test according to the Godfrey protocol up to volitional fatigue. Time spent in moderate and vigorous physical activity (MVPA) assessed objectively by accelerometry was related to the time spent in the respective activity categories by correlation analyses and calculating intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC). Furthermore, the results of the exercise test were correlated with the results of the questionnaires.ResultsTime spent in the categories 'hard','very hard' and 'hard & very hard' of the 7D-PAR (0.41 < r < 0.56) and 'active' (r = 0.33) of the HAES correlated significantly with MVPA. The activity levels of the LRC were not related to objectively determined physical activity. Significant ICCs were only observed between the 7D-PAR activitiy categories and MVPA (ICC = 0.40-0.44). Only the LRC showed moderate correlations with the exercise test (Wmax: r = 0.46, p = 0.002; VO2peak: r = 0.32, p = 0.041).ConclusionsIn conclusion, the activity categories 'hard' and 'very hard' of the 7D-PAR best reflected objectively measured MVPA. Since the association was at most moderate, the 7D-PAR may be selected to describe physical activity within a population. None of the evaluated questionnaires was able to generate valid physical activity data exercise performance data at the individual level. Neither did any of the questionnaires provide a valid assessment of aerobic fitness on an invidual level.

Comparison of two exercise testing protocols in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome

This study examined whether a linear exercise stress-testing protocol generated different peak exercise performance variables than a stepwise exercise testing protocol in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). We conducted a comparative study with patients randomly allocated to one of two exercise testing protocols. Twenty-eight women with CFS completed two self-reported measures (the CFS Symptom List and the CFS Activities and Participation Questionnaire) and then performed until exhaustion either the linear or the stepwise exercise testing protocol with continuous monitoring of physiological variables (heart rate and oxygen uptake). At baseline, we found no significant differences in demographic features and health status between groups (p > 0.05). Based on ratio peak workload/peak oxygen uptake, mechanical efficiency was lower among the subjects performing the stepwise protocol (p = 0.002). When we analyzed the mean linear regression slope values between oxygen uptake and workload from each subject's minute-by-minute exercise data points, we found that mechanical efficiency was lower among the subjects performing the stepwise protocol (p = 0.039). Apart from mechanical efficiency, we found no differences in exercise performance data between groups (p > 0.05). Our results suggest that the difference between linear and stepwise exercise protocols cannot account for all discrepancies of previous studies on exercise performance data in women with CFS, but they do suggest that the nature of the exercise testing protocol influences mechanical efficiency in these patients. Further study is warranted.

Statistical Techniques for Interpreting Body Size–Related Exercise Performance during Growth

This paper reviews some of the statistical methods available for controlling for body size differences in the interpretation of developmental changes in exercise performance. For cross-sectional data analysis simple per body mass ratio scaling continues to be widely used, but is frequently ineffective as the computed ratio remains correlated with body mass. Linear regression techniques may distinguish group differences more appropriately but, as illustrated, only allometric (log-linear regression) scaling appropriately removes body size differences while accommodating the heteroscedasticity common in exercise performance data. The analysis and interpretation of longitudinal data within an allometric framework is complex. More established methods such as ontogenetic allometry allow insights into individual size-function relationships but are unable to describe adequately population effects or changes in the magnitude of the response. The recently developed multilevel regression modeling technique represents a flexible and sensitive solution to such problems allowing both individual and group responses to be modeled concurrently.

Impact of resistance training on endurance performance. A new form of cross-training?

In accordance with the principles of training specificity, resistance and endurance training induce distinct muscular adaptations. Endurance training, for example, decreases the activity of the glycolytic enzymes, but increases intramuscular substrate stores, oxidative enzyme activities, and capillary, as well as mitochondrial, density. In contrast, resistance or strength training reduces mitochondrial density, while marginally impacting capillary density, metabolic enzyme activities and intramuscular substrate stores (except muscle glycogen). The training modalities do induce one common muscular adaptation: they transform type IIb myofibres into IIa myofibres. This transformation is coupled with opposite changes in fibre size (resistance training increases, and endurance training decreases, fibre size), and, in general, myofibre contractile properties. As a result of these distinct muscular adaptations, endurance training facilitates aerobic processes, whereas resistance training increases muscular strength and anaerobic power. Exercise performance data do not fit this paradigm, however, as they indicate that resistance training or the addition of resistance training to an ongoing endurance exercise regimen, including running or cycling, increases both short and long term endurance capacity in sedentary and trained individuals. Resistance training also appears to improve lactate threshold in untrained individuals during cycling. These improvements may be linked to the capacity of resistance training to alter myofibre size and contractile properties, adaptations that may increase muscular force production. In contrast to running and cycling, traditional dry land resistance training or combined swim and resistance training does not appear to enhance swimming performance in untrained individuals or competitive swimmers, despite substantially increasing upper body strength. Combined swim and swim-specific 'in-water' resistance training programmes, however, increase a competitive swimmer's velocity over distances up to 200 m. Traditional resistance training may be a valuable adjunct to the exercise programmes followed by endurance runners or cyclists, but not swimmers; these latter athletes need more specific forms of resistance training to realise performance improvement.

Physicial working capacity and maximal oxygen uptake of teenaged athletes

Physical working capacities (FWC170) and maximal oxygen uptakes (maxV̇02) of three groups of teenaged athletes from Nova Scotia, Canada, were assessed. Aerobic capacities ranging from 46 to 57 ml/kg-min were observed for twelve girls aged 12 to 18 years while values obtained for nine boys aged 15 to 20 years ranged from 50 to 74 ml/kg·min. PWC and maxV̇o2 values were evaluated in terms of body weight, fat-free body weight and body surface area. Apparent sexual differences in PWC170 performance disappeared when values were expressed in terms of body weight or fat-free body weight. Differences in aerobic capacity remained significant when this procedure was repeated for maxV̇o2 values. Correlations and regression equations for predicted and obtained maxV̇o2 values indicated that there is little validity in estimating maximal aerobic capacity for treadmill running from submaximal bicycle ergometer work. The need for international standardization of exercise performance data is discussed with the suggestion that values expressed in units of fat-free body weight may be the most useful index for evaluation.